Author and journalist Lynn Barber has withdrawn from a literary festival after the local council refused to include a photograph of her smoking in its brochure for the event. Her ferocious interview technique earned her the soubriquet Demon Barber, but this is the first time she has been branded a potentially corrupting influence.

Barber, who writes for the Observer, was due to appear at Richmond's Book Now festival in November to discuss her memoir, An Education, which tells of the destructive affair she began as a teenager with an older man who picked her up at a bus stop. Her publisher Penguin had supplied a black and white photograph of Barber for inclusion in the festival's brochure, embroidered scarf around her neck, head thrown back, cigarette in mouth.

But Richmond council deemed that using a picture of an author smoking went against its responsibility to encourage "good health habits", and asked Barber to provide another. She declined and pulled out of the festival, saying that she had "always wanted to be a Smoking Martyr and obviously this is my opportunity".

"If a pic of me smoking is such a threat to the good burghers of Richmond, imagine what my presence would do," she said this morning. Barber, winner of five British Press awards, is also the author of a study of Victorian naturalists, The Heyday of Natural History, along with How to Improve Your Man in Bed and The Single Woman's Sex Book.

"I've been told that we can't use that photo because Lynn is smoking in it - the situation is a little bit ridiculous, as elsewhere we've got Martin Amis pictured with a lighter in his hand," said Nathan Hamilton, a freelance programmer for the Richmond literary festival who had been putting the brochure together.

With other authors lined up to appear including Fay Weldon and AS Byatt as well as Amis, Hamilton said he hoped Barber's decision not to appear at the festival wouldn't "precipitate a bunch of other writerly smokers loyal to the cause to withdraw in solidarity". "I mean, if every writer who smoked and drank pulled out of a literary festival, that would probably rule out most writers; you wouldn't be left with much of a literary festival," he said.

A Richmond council spokesman said: "We don't like to use images of people smoking in our promotional material. As a local authority we are responsible for encouraging good health habits in the area, and to be seen to be endorsing smoking, no matter how unintentional, doesn't complement this. We asked M iss Barber for an alternative picture but she declined and has withdrawn from the festival, which is a shame given her standing as an author and journalist."